Eagles Biography

Eagles are an American rock music group that was formed in Los Angeles, California in the early 1970s. With five number one singles and four number one albums, the Eagles were among the most successful recording artists of the 1970s. At the end of the 20th century, two of their albums, Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 and Hotel California, ranked among the ten best-selling albums according to the Record Industry Association of America. Their best-selling studio album Hotel California is rated as the 37th album in the Rolling Stone list The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. They are also the best-selling American band ever (followed by Aerosmith), with Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 being the best selling album in the US to date (at more than 29 million copies sold, and 45 million units sold worldwide, making it the 2nd best selling album of all time after Thriller by Michael Jackson). After their reunion they have toured regularly making new fans in the process and setting records for collection through their concerts.

Their early music was a hybrid of country and bluegrass instrumentation grafted onto the harmonies of California surfer rock, producing tender ballads and soft top-down country-flavored pop-rock about relationships, cars, and the wandering life. The originators of this genre were gifted singer/songwriters, among them Gram Parsons, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, and Warren Zevon. The Eagles took the singer-songwriter ethos to a group setting with increased emphasis on arrangements and musicianship, and the group's early sound became synonymous with the southern California country rock. On later albums the band dispensed with bluegrass instrumentation and gravitated to a more straight-ahead rock sound.